Heavenly Father, we come again before you and acknowledge from our hearts what a privilege we have in being in your presence and sensing once more your smile upon us in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. We ask, Lord, that you would come to us now as we continue to worship you, not as speakers now, but as listeners, and as we listen to the voice of our Lord Jesus Christ as he speaks to us from his word. We ask, Lord, that we would be conscious of His presence and of His grace and authority and power. And we ask that You would indeed draw us to Him as individuals, indeed, but also as Your church, as Your family. And that we would be brought to kneel inwardly before Him and love Him and still love Him more, even more, the love of Christ. And we pray that when we know that love today, and that we would know indeed that we are his loved ones. We pray this all in his name and all God’s people said, amen, amen.

James chapter one, verses 13 to verse 18. Please give your full attention, this is the word of our God. Let no one say when he is tempted, I am being tempted by God, for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire, when it has conceived, gives birth to sin, and sin, when it has fully grown, brings forth death. Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. Every good and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. Of His own will, He brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of His creation. So far the reading of God’s word, may He add His blessing upon it now.

Many of us when we sin, or many when they sin, There’s a tendency that some have to blame others for their sin, right? From our flesh, this is something we reflexively do in our fleshly state. We blame others. Or you’ve heard the phrase, the devil made me do it, right? And worse yet, some people blame God for the sins that they commit. Chapter 1 of James, this book, is divided into two paragraphs. We’ve looked at the first paragraph in the previous weeks, verses 2 to 12. In this paragraph, as you remember, sets forth the basic thesis of the book on the whole. Again, as we’ve seen again and again, the conclusion, the thesis, the big point is made up front and then it’s fleshed out throughout the remainder of the book. We can see this thesis, what this thesis says, is by reading verses two to four and then verse 12. Remember last week we talked about the bookends that we see here. Verses two to four. I’ll just read verse two, count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. And then verse 12. blesses the man who remains steadfast under trial. For when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him. Right, and so we see this is kind of the basic thrust, the theme, the thesis of what he’s going to say. And what James says forth in this letter is the importance of persevering through trials, passing the test, and receiving the crown of life, right, that eschatological reward we talked about. Well, this morning, we turn to the second paragraph in this first chapter, really the first half of that second paragraph, if you will. And in this passage, we see a couple of important details that James gives us, right? Verses 13 to 18, James adds an important qualification, and it has two parts, right? Verses 13 to 15, he speaks of a description of temptation, right? A description of temptation. And in verses 16 to 18, he speaks of the defeat of temptation. So a description of temptation, how it works, how temptation works, and then a defeat of temptation, how temptation is overcome. But let’s look first at verses 13 and 14, kind of set the stage for what he’s doing. These verses read as such. Let no one say when he is tempted, I am being tempted by God, for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one, but each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. And so we have to ask of the text here some questions. Why does James say, why does he say God cannot be tempted by evil and he himself does not tempt anyone? Temptation involves an impulse or an attraction to sin. But God has no inner attraction to sin. Therefore he cannot desire that man would be tempted to sin. Unlike Satan, who did this very thing, he tempted Adam because he wanted him to sin. He was luring him to do so. And it’s important for us to understand that James, this isn’t a blanket, he’s not denying that God brings trials or tests into our lives. Verse 12, we saw that, indeed, blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trials. For when he stood the test, he will receive the crown of life. But God brings trials into lives if his people Why? In order to test them to see what is in their hearts, the trials, the temptations that come. And a famous example of this, of course, is Genesis 22 that we read in our Old Testament reading, this binding of Isaac for the burnt offering. And the text explicitly said, you’ll remember that God tested Abraham when he commanded him to offer his son Isaac as a burnt offering. So when Abraham raised the knife, the angel of the Lord intercedes, he intervenes and he says, Genesis 22, 12. And the purpose of that test was what? It was to see what was in Abraham’s heart, to see whether he would follow the Lord in unconditional obedience. And the point James is making in our text this morning is that in the trial, and again, temptation, tempted, and trial, these all have the same root in the original Greek. They’re all related, they all mean a similar thing. But in the trial, it’s not God’s intention to tempt us into sin. That’s what he’s saying. It’s not his intention to tempt us into sin. Every trial we know carries with it a temptation to stray from God’s will. But the temptation to stray from God’s will in the midst of those trials originates from where? From our own sinful hearts, not from God. It’s a presenting issue, if you will. And then verse 14, each person when he is tempted is lured and enticed by his own desire. And the word desire there, some of your translations may say his own lust, which is really what the word means. It’s a better translation. It’s a combination of two words that means an over-desire, an overarching, a big, a higher desire. And the word describes this innate tendency inherited from Adam in the fall to have desires that are out of accord with God’s will for man. Some of your translations might say defiling passions. That’s another synonym, synonymous for what he’s saying here. But notice what it says. Notice the modifier. He’s lured and enticed by what? By his own desire. This originates not from God, but from the heart of man. And so James places the responsibility for temptation to sin squarely on the shoulders of each human being. We cannot blame God even though he is sovereign. And notice James, he doesn’t equate these sinful desires with actual sin. He says in verse 15 that the desires conceive and give birth to sin. And so all sinful desires are sinful, and all actual sins proceed from these sinful desires. Yet they’re not morally equivalent, the desire and the sin. But there’s a circle here, there’s a cycle or pattern for sin that comes from man. And in reliance on God’s grace, our sinful desires may be checked by obedience to God’s will. Fueled by faith in the gospel, trusting and believing again what he says about us and what he says about what he’s done for us and to us and given to us and promised us. And so James 1, 13 to 15, he tells us that God is sovereign, but he is not the author of temptation. That’s what he’s saying in these verses. The enticement to sin that we face in the midst of those trials doesn’t come from God, but it comes from our own sinful desires, the lusts of our heart. And that’s how temptation works, as we read on. It’s lust, then sin, then death. Lust, sin, and death. Temptation often happens, as you know, in a moment of time, in a flash of time. And James is saying that we need to be able to slow down that flashing moment that comes so that we can see what’s going on and what’s happening in that moment and build up the defenses that we need to fight against it through the power of the Lord and the strength of His might. And so the first thing to notice here is the deception of temptation, the deception of temptation. Temptation always involves an attempt at deception, right? And in that moment of weakness or in that flash of anger, everything is changed. Temptation is deceptive because it plays on our sinful desires, on our lusts, and it tells us that For instance, that image will give us pleasure, or that that relationship will fulfill my needs, or that drug will help me through, or that my outburst will fix the problem, or at least make me feel better. James tells us that we don’t see far enough ahead beyond these things. We are nearsighted, right? The apostle Peter talks about this as well. We don’t see, James says, the crown of glory that our Father has for us. When we see that crown and it shines brightly in our minds and in our hearts, we’ll be able to see that deception for what it really is, a lie. Hebrews talks about this as well. Hebrews 3, verse 13, it refers to the deceitfulness of sin. The deceitfulness of sin. Sin is a liar. Deception of sin, we look at, and then we look at, secondly, temptation always involves attraction, right? Attraction. We’re never tempted for things that we don’t find attractive in one way or another. James says that each person is tempted when he is lured and dragged away by that attraction, like a magnet that would drag the metal along. This, of course, we go back to Genesis 3 to see this very thing, right? How it was that Eve was lured away and attracted by the serpent when she was brought to the tree. And all that she saw, all she saw was that fruit, right? That it looked delicious and it was attractive, and she lusted for it in her eyes and in her heart. Those weren’t the most important things about that tree, though, right? But in her eyes, they became the most important thing, and she’s blinded to what God said about the tree. And that’s how temptation works, right? We’re blinded by the attraction of a thing and not by what does, not informed and following what does God say about this or that, right? Or think of David and Bathsheba, right? This instance. In the history of Israel, King David, when he’s drawn away, not from beauty, right? God-given beauty. But David no longer thinks about this woman in what God has to say about women, or especially about married women. All he sees is that she is attractive, right? Good to the eye, he thinks, right? And we’ve talked about this before. I had a professor used to tell us in seminary that even good goods make bad gods. We can have a noble, good desire for something, but once it turns into an idol, it’s not a good thing. Good goods make bad gods. We’re not to make idols of good things. And no, beauty is a good thing given by God. Beauty became an idol for David. And James says you need to watch out for deception. It’ll come in the form of attraction that will lead to preoccupation or obsession. And this is what it means when he says, you’re lured, enticed by his own desire. There’s an attraction and there’s a preoccupation when it gets into the mind and into the heart. And brothers and sisters, we need, all of us, young people and the older of us, we must learn to protect our mind and our heart and our soul and our purity. It’s oh so significant and oh so discarded and thought of nothing in this culture. We need to be aware of temptation and its effect on our minds and in our hearts. We need to be aware, brothers and sisters, of the blinding reality and destructive reality of temptation. We need to be often in prayer. Be often in prayer. Guard your minds and your hearts by your walk in communion with our Lord. His peace will protect you, he says. You want more victory over the sin in your life or the things that tempt you? Meditate on his word. Be constant in prayer. Paul says, meditate upon his word. Take it in and mull it over, meditate upon it. Let it dislodge other things that are not good in your life. Let it inform you, let it correct your perspective on all things. It has the power, you know, by the Holy Spirit’s working to transform you. His word will change you if you do so. It will give you strength and fortitude and power over those things that tempt you and over your failings. And that’s a wonderful thing. It’s a wonderful promise from the Word of God. And these are things, of course, that the culture works diametrically opposed to, that it works against in the rapidity and the constant stimulation. We are not served by having this kind of frenetic, velocitized mind to the speed of everything that’s going on and never going deep. We need to learn to be quiet and get deep before the Lord and just sit before Him and sit before His Word and meditate upon His Word. and seek His face and His will for our lives. It’s all important. And so James gives a description of temptation. And then in verses 16 and 18, he tells us something of the defeat of temptation, right? How is it overcome? And so in these verses, 16 to 18, he makes a similar point in a positive way. He says, God is not the author of temptation. On the contrary, what does it say that God gives? What does God give according to these verses? God gives only good gifts, right? Verse 16, do not be deceived, my brothers. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. All right, and so what does he mean when he says, the father of lights, right? Every good gift comes down from the father of lights. I wonder if you’ve reflected upon that phrase. I think it comes from, it’s a reflection back to the creator, right? The Lord himself in Genesis 1, where it talks about what? The sun and the moon and the stars are called lights, right? Lights to rule the day and rule the night. To say that God is the father of these heavenly luminaries says something. In Hebrew it means, it’s a way of saying that God is the originator and the sovereign governor of these things. And perhaps James here is engaging in an argument, in a polemic against astrology even. What does astrology teach? It’s the belief that our lives and destinies are governed by those lights, by the stars, by the heavens. And it’s amazing, when we think about those things, as believers, even in the 21st century, what people will believe in. It’s amazing. The superstitions and the superstitious things that people will accept with no evidence or reason or justification, all the while denying the Christianity and the Bible’s teaching about things. Evolution is another absurd worldview. But here, there’s a polemic against astrology. In response to astrological teaching or astrology’s teaching, James points out that God is the author of the luminaries, the lights. Our lives are not governed by the constantly changing, capricious system of stars and planets, but they’re governed by a good, heavenly Father who is constant and unchanging. He does not change. And he goes on to support this in verse 17. about the Father of Lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow. And quite literally what it says is there is no shadow cast by turning, right? Shadow cast by turning, right? And the heavens constantly change in appearance and location in the sky, right? They’re not fixed for us. Constantly changing and turning, they cast shadows as they change and move. The sun rises, right, even from our perspective, bringing light, and it sets its glory, it is temporarily extinguished in the shadow of night until day comes again. The moon becomes completely overshadowed once a month, and then it gradually grows back into a full moon, only to wane again and disappear. And the cycle repeats. There is also, you know, shadows caused by solar and lunar eclipses, right? Maybe you’ve heard of the blood moon as a result of one of these eclipses. But unlike the sun and the moon, with their shadows constantly changing and turning, God is what? He is steadfast. He’s unchanging. Therefore, God can never cast any shadows. He is the creator of those lights. He’s not subject to those lights and shadows. He’s sovereign. He’s good. He’s unchanging. He’s the creator of all things. And so everything that comes from his hand, we read, is a good and perfect gift coming down from above. And that includes, in the context of James 1 here, our trials. trials that come into our lives. They don’t come by an equal opposite power than the Lord. They come through the Lord. And so nothing that comes to us in this life should be viewed as one of those dark shadows cast by some indecisive, capricious God, constantly shifting in his character from one moment to the next. No, James says, all that God brings our way in his providence is a good and perfect gift from a wise father who loves us with an unchanging and everlasting love. And he pursues his purposes of accomplishing salvation and perfection of his elect. And so trials, you see, are part of every good and perfect gift. As hard as that is for us to understand, reflexively in our flesh, we don’t think those things. But that’s what he’s saying, right? Do we believe in the sovereignty of God or do we not? And here we have a verbal link as well, back to chapter one, verse four, right? When it says, perfect, right? Perfect is a link back. Verse four said this, let steadfast have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing, right? Perfect means full, complete, mature. And we have that in our text this morning. Everything, including trials, comes down from God. He is a good and loving Father. They’re given to make you perfect, to make you complete, lacking nothing. And then in verse 18, James continues this creation theme. He says, once more, verse 18, of his own will, he brought us forth by the word of truth. He brought us forth by the word of truth. that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creation. But there’s a lot there in that verse, right? What is he saying? It’s his creation theme again, for sure. And he describes the new birth through the word of truth as a new creation, right? And this is what 2 Corinthians 5 tells us, right? Anyone in Christ is a new creation. Just as the original creation, as you know, was a sovereign exercise of God’s will brought forth by his mere word of command, So also, by the exercise of his will, he brought us forth through that word of truth. And that phrase, word of truth, occurs about four times in the New Testament. And each time, it’s a reference to the gospel as the instrument of the new birth. The gospel as the instrument of the new birth. James here is referring to what we have come to call technically as effectual calling. This occurs by means of the preaching of the gospel. God’s sovereign will by the preaching of the gospel has resulted in the inauguration of the new creation. The inauguration, the coming, the beginning, the in-breaking of a new creation. And while that new creation is yet still future, remember the new heavens and the new earth were promised and prophesied in Isaiah, right, in Isaiah, and also in Revelation 21 speaks of this new heaven and the new earth as a future reality, but We who believe in Christ, brothers and sisters, through the sovereign action of God and giving us new birth by the word of truth, we are the first fruits of that new creation. We are the first fruits of that new creation. What does that mean? We are the down payment, the first installment of God’s plan of redemption. Christians are in part, Christians are that part of the new creation. first harvested by God as part of it, which will be redeemed in its wholeness and fullness at the end of time, at the end of the consummation, when it returns and all things are wrapped up, the eschatological reality. of redemptive history of this creation. But notice that it’s also, right, we are the down payment, the first installment, but also this idea of down payment or first fruits. Remember what the first fruits were, do you remember? Remember we talked about this in 1 Corinthians 15? The first fruits were the best part of the harvest. They were the best part, the cream of the crop, if you will. And so God’s ultimate concern and delight is not in the physical creation itself, but in those whom he has redeemed and made to be his very own possession. We are the pinnacle of that new creation, the most valuable, desirable part in God’s eyes. In verse 2 to 11, James has told us what? He has set forth his basic theology of the testing of faith. Faith must be tested through trials to be proven genuine. And then in verses 13 to 17, he has corrected this potential misunderstanding of his theology of the testing of faith. When we are being tested through trials, God is not tempting us to sin. His will is unchanging and constant. He only sends good gifts. What does Paul say in Romans chapter eight? Everything that he brings into our lives are for our good. In verse 18, he reminds us that the new birth through the word of truth has caused us to be the first fruits of that new creation. What a glorious thought. And therefore, when God sends trials, he’s not trying to tempt us to fall away. He has no destructive intent for you, brothers and sisters, who name His name, who’ve placed your faith in upon Him, Jesus Christ. Why would God want to destroy the firstfruits of His new creation? Rather, God’s intent is to provide the opportunity for the faith that He Himself has authored to be proven genuine. You see that? God sends trials to perfect the work of His own hands. That’s a big, grand, and glorious thing, brothers and sisters. We should not see these things with a ho-hum attitude and yawning indifference. This is glorious what he is doing. But let’s look as we close at these truths for us today. Let’s close by looking at some of the things to take away from this passage, things that we can learn from what James has told us. First, we need to learn to be familiar with the temptation cycle, right? We need to be prepared, to be settled in who we are before the temptation comes, right? The time to prepare for a disaster or a calamity is not in the disaster or the calamity, it’s when you’re not in it, it’s before it, right? We need to be prepared and settled in who you are before Jesus Christ, before that temptation comes, right? Think of soldiers, right? They’re always training, always training, in a constant state of readiness. Well, you also, we as believers in Jesus Christ, are also in a battle, right? There are sides that have been drawn. We’re in a battle. We need to always remember that. And how do we prepare? How do we prepare? What has God given us so we can be prepared and strengthened and encouraged and established and grounded in these things? Well, of course, He’s given us the means of grace, we call it, the means of grace. We need to all be always growing in Scripture, growing in our understanding of Scripture, getting into it, getting it into us. We need to be always under the preaching of God’s Word. We need to always be participating in, regularly, the sacraments, right? The supper is a means by which God strengthens you and reminds you and makes you prepared and strong for the battle when it comes. We need to be in fellowship with one another, sharpening one another in that fellowship. We need to be in constant prayer, God tells us in Philippians. Walking close with Jesus. This is a way of being prepared for those temptations. And so we need to be familiar with and ready for temptations when they come. And then secondly, we need to learn how to be convinced of the unchanging goodness of God. How often we betray what we say we think about God and we blame Him for things that He brings into our lives. Is God a good God? Yes, He is. Is He merciful? Yes, He is. Is He one good for those whom He’s called by His name? Yes, He does. We need to learn how to be convinced of the unchanging goodness of God. God does not love you one moment and hate you the next and want your destruction. He loves you. And this, of course, is always under attack, these truths about what God says and who God is, his character. I think of Genesis 3 as a great example of this. This challenge, this attack of the goodness of God that the serpent brings to Eve. We need to know that our God is a good God. He’s a good God working things out for your good. Maybe not always for your pleasure as you perceive them, but they’re for your good. And we need to know that he will never, ever, ever forsake you. That’s his promise, the word of God. We need to believe and remember that he will complete what he began in you and trust that and believe it, that it’s true. Our lives are a life of challenge of our trust and our belief, right? I believe, Lord, help my unbelief, right, was the prayer from Mark, the man, the father in Mark. And then third, we need to learn to know that you’ve experienced, if you belong to Jesus, if you place your faith in Him for all of your life, right? You’re united to Him. You need to remember that you’ve experienced the transforming power of that new birth. You’ve gone through that. That’s true of you, right? Are you His? See who you are, therefore, and then be who you are, right? See who you are, the reality of your identity in Christ. Now be that person, right? Why do we fall into temptations and sin? We fall because we forget who we are in Christ. We forget the who we are, right? There’s this spiritual amnesia that takes place, right? We forget who we are, so we’re acting like somebody that we’re not. Peter talks about this as well in his epistles. We are fooled and deceived into thinking we are indeed like that dog who cannot but return help, but return to its vomits. But we’re not that dog. We’re a new creation. We’re not bound to that. We’re free. The door is open from the cell of sin. We need to walk through it. We are sons and daughters of the king, dear Christian. Believe in Christ, you are sons and daughters of that great king. And that is a wonderful thing. And as we learn these things more and more in a fresh and a new, may we all grow in believing and understanding this glorious truth. And may He continue to train us to pass the test and to be prepared for battle, right? As He brings us into completion, conforming us to the image of His beloved Son, our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.